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When Donald Chambers advises students to pursue careers in fields they love, he speaks from experience.
“Money and investing have been my lifelong passion,” says Chambers, who is Walter E. Hanson/KPMG Professor of Business and Finance. “In retrospect it seems obvious, but I didn’t realize I could go down this path. I stumbled into it and knew it was always meant to be.”
Chambers’ zeal for investing, begun while watching his father do it, has helped students pinpoint their majors at Lafayette and find satisfying careers after graduation.
“I walked into Professor Chambers’ class as an uncertain chemical engineering major,” says Nicholas Ernst ’98, now a director of weather derivatives at Evolution Markets in White Plains and Albany, N.Y. “I graduated Lafayette with a double major in A.B. engineering and economics & business, and I’m working as a trader.”
Likewise, He Shen ’97, director of new product development at Merrill Lynch Global, calls Chambers a “very inspiring person” who loves his subject and helped him decide on a double major of electrical engineering and economics and business.
“It was a combination of his teaching and the subject itself that drew my interest,” says Shen, who says he is now happy with his field of “financial engineering.” “I appreciate the things Don taught me, his enthusiasm for the subject, and his general way of approaching life.”
Chambers has published five books and more than 30 journal articles regarding investments, corporate finance and capital markets. He says he enjoys teaching finance because it’s a dynamic, ever-changing field with so many potential opportunities for his students and him. He recently became a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst. He is among the first group of applicants to qualify for this newly created designation and has been involved in the development of study guides to assist future applicants. Alternative investments is a new and rapidly growing classification of investments that includes hedge funds, real estate, investment trusts, private equity and managed futures.
“I particularly enjoy esoteric investment strategies. It’s also a greatly expanding area,” says Chambers, who feels that traditional vehicles like mutual funds “don’t allow the sophisticated strategies where success can be found in investments.”
Alternative investments, on the other hand, requiring a minimum of disclosure, lend themselves to such strategies. One such alternative that interests Chamber is private equities, or participating in the ownership of privately held stock often through ad hoc arrangements.
“Lately, I’ve also been interested in real estate investment trusts, trying to identify what’s overpriced and underpriced,” he says.
“I teach diversification. We tend to want to spread out our money. I’m not suggesting putting a lot of money into alternative investments, but to tilt it in the direction of the best risk-return tradeoff. When stocks and bonds look dismal, allow more to go into private equity or real estate, and vice versa. I’m trying to bring this into the classroom as well.”
He succeeds, according to Ernst, who says Chambers “truly involves you in the teachings.”
“In addition, he has the ability to make you think outside of academia and try to make you understand where you are, what you are doing, and where you are going,” Ernst says.
Chambers counsels students to consider three things picking a career: what they love to do, where the jobs are, and what their skills are.
“People struggle with No. 1, but I always say think about what you loved before money was a pressure,” says the professor. “For me it was stocks and bonds. It’s a lesson for people to think about. Pursue your childhood dream.”
Publications: “The M-Vector Model: The Derivation and Testing of Extensions to M-Square” (co-author Sanjay Nawalkha), Journal of Portfolio Management (Winter 1997); “An Improved Immunization Strategy: M-Absolute” (co-author Sanjay Nawalkha), Financial Analysts Journal, Sept./Oct. 1996).
Honors: Is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst. Received the Department of Economics and Business Teaching Award, 1997 and 2001.
Achievements: A consultant to the public and private sectors, he is called upon frequently as an expert witness in litigation regarding investments.
Contact: (610) 330-5303; chambers@lafayette.edu